


Itemized and Numbered

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bad dreams, a strange waking, and a circuitous path back to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itemized and Numbered

Steve jolts awake, heart pounding, the darkness shredded with images, sounds, smells that mean he can't find his bearings. He struggles to sit up, blinks at the walls around him, tries to clear his vision, but he's seeing one thing while knowing another, and his dresser's across the room, but there's leaf canopy, too, the sticky dirt of the jungle floor and the twist of sheets beneath his thighs.

"Hey, hey," Danny says, voice thick with sleep. "You're right here. Tell me."

Steve swallows hard, lowers his chin like the misfire of his brain is something he can stare into submission if he challenges it hard enough. "Dresser."

"Color?"

"Dark. Dark wood."

"And?"

Danny isn't touching him. Steve can feel the slight warmth of his body, close, but he's keeping his distance, and Steve wants to tell him thank you, but that's three or four impulses too many. He grits his teeth.

"Tell me," Danny says again, voice firm, gentle, steady.

"Picture. I mean – photograph. Gold frame, mom and dad." Steve's head throbs and he rubs the heel of one hand against his temple. "Uh – white wall, pebbles, watch. It's yours. Pen, slip of – receipt, maybe. White." Steve closes his eyes for a moment, lets himself feel his breath sing in and out of his lungs. But there's green, dark green, the damp of jungle, the too-sweet scent of dying flowers behind his lids, and he jerks them back open, shakes his head. "Chair. Wooden chair. White tee, crumpled. Something – pants. Pants, or jeans. Yours." He rolls his shoulders. "Lamp. Rug – it looks black, there's blue, it's blue. My boots."

Steve works his way across the room, speaks every object into being, counts the panes of glass in the windows, describes the shape of his phone on the bedside table, the coil of twine beside it. "It's Hawaii," he tells himself eventually, exhaustion creeping in as the adrenaline rush of memory fades. "Hawaii. 2011. My house. It's Hawaii."

Danny touches him then, finds his hand and gives it a squeeze. "Yeah?"

Steve looks around the room, checks that everything's in its place, that the walls are steady, and there's nothing to see but the here and now. "Yeah," he says at last. "Yeah. I'm here." He flops back against his pillow, scrubs his free hand across his face. "Shit."

"Nope," Danny says, threading their fingers. "No judgment."

"Danny . . ."

"No. It happens. You didn't do something wrong, this is not some reflection of your willpower, you know that."

Steve lets out a long breath and rolls over, settling their joined hands in the middle of Danny's chest. It's hard not to feel stupid, even as he feels relief to have this, to have Danny know, to have Danny wake with him and pull him back. "Okay." The word doesn't come easy; it doesn't feel okay, but he rubs his cheek against the cotton of his pillowcase and blows out a breath. "Sor – "

"Say that word and I will end you," Danny promises, as if he's commenting on the weather, not issuing death threats. "We have been over this. I have plans. Lists, Steven. Long, itemized, numbered lists of the ways I will end you if you say that word under these circumstances ever again."

"Pfffft," Steve huffs, but he lets his eyes close, flexes his fingers against Danny's just to feel the drag of skin against skin. "If you say so."

"I say so," Danny murmurs, and Steve can hear the fondness in his voice. His cheeks heat, and he grumbles to cover himself, shifts to lay his head on Danny's shoulder, Danny's arm coming around his back, holding him in place. It feels good, stupidly good to lie like this, and Steve can feel some part of himself struggle against it, urging him to get up, to pace the house and check the alarms, squint into the darkness of the beach, the lanai.

But he doesn't. "I just – " he says instead.

"Lists. Numbered lists." Danny glances his lips to the top of Steve's head.

Steve shivers, eyes closed; negotiates an honorable surrender with himself, narrates his path to sleep in deference to the part of him that still wants to fight. Danny, he thinks. Skin, warmth, breath, body. Steady heartbeat. Hawaii. Safe.


End file.
